Buying guides
Which one, for the garden you actually have
A hub weighs one family against itself. A guide takes a single question instead — a budget, a first filter for somebody who has never backwashed one, what has to be bought before the ground is levelled — and answers it with a short ordered list and the reasoning that produced the order.
- Starting out
What a first above-ground pool actually needs
A pool box rarely contains everything the pool needs. Here is what goes under it, into it and over it, and why the order of purchase matters.
- Running costs
The cheapest route to clear water
Chlorine, a way of reading it, and the two products that deal with cloudiness and algae. What a season actually costs in consumables.
- Salt systems
What a salt pool actually requires
A chlorinator, the right grade of salt, and a way of checking the result. What salt changes about pool chemistry, and what it leaves exactly as it was.
- Heating
Solar heating, and what it can honestly deliver
Collectors, covers and a thermometer. What solar heating depends on, why no listing can promise a temperature, and what actually holds the warmth overnight.
- Winter
Shutting a pool down so it opens cleanly
A winterising product, a cover cut for the season, a way of lowering the water and something to repair with. What goes wrong over winter, and when.
- Cleaning
Building a manual cleaning kit that reaches
A pole, a head, a net, a hose and a skimmer. Why reach and suction matter more than brush quality, and which figures on a listing decide whether the kit works.
- Testing
Knowing what the water is doing
Two ways of reading a pool and the product that corrects the most common result. Where each method stops, and why a reading beats a schedule.
- Water treatment
When chlorine is not the right sanitiser
Three routes away from a tub of chlorine tablets, what each one is actually suited to, and the trade every one of them carries.
- Filtration
When a sand filter is worth the change
A sand system, the media that goes in it and the valve that controls it. What changes about maintenance, and the one figure that must match the vessel.
- Small spaces
Water in a garden that has no room for a pool
Compact pools, a spa that packs away, filtration that needs no plumbing and the small pieces that make a tight installation work.
- Spares
The parts that fail, and when
Cartridges, patches, a liner, a hose and a fitting. What wears out on a predictable schedule, and what fails on the worst possible day.
- Debris
Stopping debris before it reaches the filter
An enclosure, a cover, a skimmer, a net and the cartridge that catches what gets through. Four barriers in the order they act.